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"Men of Honor" charts the real-life journey of Carl Brashear (Gooding Jr), from poor but determined 1950s share-cropper to pioneering and respected deep-sea diver. Beginning naval life as a segregated ship's cook, Brashear soon aspires to the master diving team led by good ol' Southern boy and all round ball-breaker Billy Sunday (De Niro).
After bombarding the diving school with letters of request, he's reluctantly accepted onto Sunday's hardcore elite training programme on the top-brass understanding that he will fail dismally. But Brashear is a plucky fella and locks horns with the irascible and unreasonable Sunday, prompting a certain (grudging) understanding between the two and a challenge to military assumptions.
With a cast this good director Tillman should be able to work wonders - and to some extent he does. This looks every inch the classy box office epic with beautiful cinematography, sweeping orchestrations, and an emotional button-pushing screenplay complete with big courtroom speeches and heroic injuries. Gooding Jr turns in a powerful performance and Theron is hauntingly soulful and underused as beautiful lush, Mrs Sunday.
Unfortunately though, De Niro is allowed to dominate proceeding with his laughable, panto-style curmudgeon. His laboured Dixie twang is mostly understandable, the squinting and gurning while chewing a pipe (reminiscent of Popeye) and the numerous scenes where he merely shouts to emote would not be out of place in a pastiche. De Niro's theatrics detract from the rest of the cast's subtleties and ultimately reduce an entertaining popcorn flick to a mere endurance test.
